Page:Dave Porter in the Gold Fields.djvu/231

Rh "You are right about one thing, Merwell," he said. "That mine is now teetotally lost—the claim was shifted by the landslide. If we could relocate the mine I think we could make our claim to it good at the land office."

"Let us try it!" cried Merwell, eagerly. "We have as much chance to do it as the Morr crowd."

"But he has that map, and the directions."

"We overheard all their talk, so I know as much as Roger Morr does. As for Blower and Dillon, they don't know this district any better than you men do, do they?"

"Not much better," answered Larry Jaley. "We've been here a good many years." He turned to Staver. "What do you say, now?"

"Wall, wot this young feller says puts a different look on the situation," replied the man who had been shot. "I'd like to have an interest in thet mine myself—thet or the one Tom Dillon onct said he had near it. An' as Sol says, if we relocated the claim, maybe we could hold it at the land office—anyway, we could claim a fat slice o' the wuth o' it."

"We'd claim it all!" cried Merwell.

"So we would!" came from Sol Blugg. "Say, sonny, you're the right kind, I reckon, an' we'll call ourselves friends," he added, and put out his hand to Link.